256 STAG-HUNTING 



to beat or try the water,' and the Comte le Couteulx 

 de Canteleu, though freely admitting the value of our 

 blood as a cross, finds little to praise in foxhounds but 

 their courage and constitution, and does not recom- 

 mend them except for boar-hunting, on account of 

 their inferior noses, their proneness to change, and 

 their tendency to run mute. 



There is no doubt that many of thQ Devon and 

 Somerset are mute, or nearly so ; it has been sug- 

 gested that the heat of the weather at the time of year 

 when they are entered has something to do with this, 

 and it may be so. But sometimes, when the scent 

 suits, nearly every hound will speak, while on another 

 day, though they run as well and as hard, nearly 

 every hound will be silent. We shall never know 

 much about scent, or why hounds hunting a deer 

 run in file, while in every other chase they carry 

 a head, till we get a hound that can talk and ex- 

 plain it. 



Our hounds will hunt a deer truly through the 

 intervening scent on the same path of a fox or hare, 

 but it must be admitted that they cannot be depended 

 on to carry the scent of a hunted stag through the lines 

 of fresh ones ; and there are few who, if they catch a 

 view of a deer, will not be after it whatever it be. Ex- 

 perience has proved, however, that they will ' beat and 



